TED2014: Edward Snowden makes surprise visit at Vancouver conference

Edward Snowden at the TED2014 - The Next Chapter, March 17-21, 2014 at the Vancouver Convention Center.Courtesy
/ Bret Hartman-TED

Edward Snowden at the TED2014 - The Next Chapter, March 17-21, 2014 at the Vancouver Convention Center.Courtesy
/ Bret Hartman/TED

Edward Snowden at the TED2014 - The Next Chapter, March 17-21, 2014 at the Vancouver Convention Center.Courtesy
/ Bret Hartman/TED

University of Toronto engineer and architect Aziza Chaouni talks on the community stage at TED on Monday. The stage has hundreds of planter boxes, built by Metro students, as its backdrop. Courtesy Ryan Lash/TED.Ryan Lash
/ Vancouver Sun

Assembly of the TED 2014 community stage for the TED conference, March 2014 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The backdrop is a five-metre high wall of 400 interlinking planter boxes made with BC Hem-Fir and Cedar lumber donated by Interfor from its mills in Castlegar and Maple Ridge. It was designed and built by 23 architectural students from the University of British Columbia, the B.C. Institute of Technology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University of Art + Design under the direction of award-winning Vancouver architect Michael Green. Each has an inspirational saying on it and they will be distributed to schools after TED wraps up.

Construction of the TED 2014 community stage for the TED conference, March 2014 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The backdrop is a five-metre high wall of 400 interlinking planter boxes made with BC Hem-Fir and Cedar lumber donated by Interfor from its mills in Castlegar and Maple Ridge. It was designed and built by 23 architectural students from the University of British Columbia, the B.C. Institute of Technology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University of Art + Design under the direction of award-winning Vancouver architect Michael Green. Each has an inspirational saying on it and they will be distributed to schools after TED wraps up.

The completed TED 2014 community stage for the TED conference, March 2014 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The backdrop is a five-metre high wall of 400 interlinking planter boxes made with BC Hem-Fir and Cedar lumber donated by Interfor from its mills in Castlegar and Maple Ridge. It was designed and built by 23 architectural students from the University of British Columbia, the B.C. Institute of Technology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University of Art + Design under the direction of award-winning Vancouver architect Michael Green. Each has an inspirational saying on it and they will be distributed to schools after TED wraps up.

Design team poses with final look of the TED2014 community stage for the TED conference, March 2014 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The backdrop for the community theatre is a five-metre high wall of 400 interlinking planter boxes made with BC Hem-Fir and Cedar lumber donated by Interfor from its mills in Castlegar and Maple Ridge. It was designed and built by 24 architectural students from the University of British Columbia, the BC Institute of Technology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University of Art + Design under the direction of award-winning Vancouver architect Michael Green. Each has an inspirational saying on it and they will be distributed to schools after TED wraps up.

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Edward Snowden, the leaker of National Security Administration secrets and perhaps the most wanted man in the world, made a surprise visit to the TED conference in Vancouver Tuesday.

That he did so from a robotic mobile camera he controlled from his secret location in Russia didn't take away from the moment.

Snowden, a one-time NSA contractor, whose decision to abscond with more than seven million secret documents has revealed the depth of illegal spying activities by the NSA, said his work is far from over.

""There are absolutely more revelations to come. Some of the most important revelations are still to come," he told TED curator Chris Anderson, who conducted a 39-minute interview with him.

Snowden, appearing in front of a black screen to obscure clues to his location, talked at length as to why he chose to break his confidentiality agreement and reveal the breadth of the U.S. government's spying activities.

He criticized web companies like Amazon for allowing the NSA access to data, and in an impromptu meeting on the stage with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, endorsed his call for a Magna Carta bill of rights for the Internet.

"We need to encode our values not just in writing, but in the structure of the Internet," Snowden said.

"People should be able to buy a book online . . . without wondering about how these events are going to look to an agent of the government."

Some recent stories based on Snowden's leaks have pointed out that the U.S. government has repeatedly broken its own laws.

"The NSA had 2,776 violations of U.S. Presidential orders and Foreign Surveillance Act in just a single year," Snowden said.

That Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee had to ask the NSA for a copy of a report showing how many times it had broken US laws shows how out of control the American intelligence community really is, he said.

"We don’t have to give up our privacy to have good government. We don't have to give up our liberty to have security," Snowden said.

Reflecting that there are many people in the United States who believe he is a traitor, some of TED's audience didn't stand up when he was given an ovation at the end of his talk.

Anderson provocatively asked for a show of hands of those who think he was wrong to leak NSA secrets, and some responded. But equally as many or more held their hands up when asked if they thought Snowden's actions were heroic.

Snowden's electronic appearance at TED was also polarizing on the Internet itself, causing a flurry of debate. Wrote American philosopher and writer Daniel Dennett: "Snowden at TED is sane, articulate, convincing. Give him the Nobel Peace Price (sic)."

Bill Wong (@ten24get) had a different view, noting the irony of Snowden's surrogate home, Russia, invading part of Ukraine. "Edward Snowden has denounced US for invading our privacy but remains silent on Russia invading an actual country."

Snowden appeared to pause with emotion when Anderson asked him what the effect of his enforced isolation in Russia has meant to him. With some people - including at least one government official - advocating he should be assassinated, Anderson asked him if his leaking was worth the personal risk.

"I didn't do this to be safe; I did this to do what was right. I'm not going to stop my work in the public interest," Snowden said.

He said he would welcome a chance to come back to the United States if an amnesty were declared, but he's not holding his breath.

Anderson told the audience he'd asked the NSA to provide someone for counterbalance but was not accommodated.

However, to peals of laughter, he addressed the NSA opening, saying "If you are listening - and I am sure you are - beam somebody in."

At the end of the talk Anderson reached over and taped a TED accreditation badge to Snowden's robotic screen. The badge noted Snowden's job description as "citizen".

This is the second surprise speaker at TED. On Monday evening Ziauddin Yousafzai, the father and inspiration to child rights activist Malala Yousafzai, talked about the effect his daughter has had on Pakistan's patriarchal society.

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